


Second Chances

by Cameron_McKell



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, F/M, Gen, M/M, More characters to be added, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Endgame, Pre-Series, Second Chances, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2711957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cameron_McKell/pseuds/Cameron_McKell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Reach Invasion, Wally wakes up in the last place he'd have expected. Everything's different, the second time around. Eventual Birdflash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

_He couldn't feel his feet anymore, but he had to keep running._

 

_“Kid?”_

 

_All color bled out of the world, until all that was left was him, Bart, and Barry in a sea of white._

 

_“Just tell them, okay?”_

 

_The white glowed_ _**so** _ _ bright, until he'd lost the two of them, as well. _

 

_ His ears were full of a strange, unearthly screaming, and his whole existence was  _ _**burning away** _ _ when – _

 

_ “ _ _**KID** _ _!” _

 

He woke up in an unfamiliar room.

 

The walls were a pale, robin's egg blue, the cheap floor tiles were a speckled gray designed to hide scuff marks from frequent traffic. Other than the fancy-looking bed he was lying on, there was little else in the room; there was a rolling over-bed table, a small television mounted into one of the far upper corners of the room...

 

Oh, and there was a variety of medical equipment attached to sensors and IV drips all over his body, particularly his hands.

 

His very  _ small _ hands.

 

“What happened?” he wondered out loud, then immediately squeaked in surprise and tried to cover his mouth.

 

His voice hadn't been  _ that _ high since he was  _ twelve _ .

 

One of the machines toward the back started to wail as he lunged for the nearest one with a big, glossy screen. He overestimated the length of his arms on his first attempt and nearly fell out of bed, but managed to snag it on the second, and turned it until he could see his reflection.

 

A  _ very _ young face stared back at him, practically  _ dripping _ with freckles and crowned with rusty red peach fuzz.

 

That wasn't right.

 

“Since when have I –?”

 

The hospital door burst open before he could finish the thought, and in barged a team of frantic doctors and nurses, already shouting to each other about 'pulmonary failure', Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris hot on their heels.

 

They all pulled up short at the sight of Wally sitting there, clearly  _ not _ having a heart attack.

 

Wally blinked at them, until his eye caught on Aunt Iris, and –

 

“Did I miss the delivery?” he asked, disheartened. Whatever weird mojo had happened to him, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he missed the twins' birth.

 

Iris and Barry both stared at him in confusion, then at each other briefly, before turning back to Wally. Barry spoke the question for both of them, “Huh?”

 

“The babies,” Wally elaborated, and felt his heart start to race crazily when they still didn't seem to understand. His aunt's and uncle's eyes widened in alarm as the room broke out in chaos, but all of Wally's focus had turned inward to get his facts in order.

 

Fact one: Iris wasn't pregnant.

 

“–  _ how _ is he still upright?! It doesn't make any –”

 

Fact two: Neither her or Barry remembered her being pregnant. Possible causes for that could be mind control, or it hadn't happened somehow, or both, or something.

 

“– think maybe that machine's just malfunctioning; when was it last calib–”

 

Fact three: He'd somehow been turned into a kid, again.

 

The retreat of the doctors, the now-detached heart monitor and all but one of the nurses brought him back to the land of the living just in time to get manhandled back into his bed and under the covers, which brought him back to another fact.

 

Fact four: They'd had him hooked up to a heart monitor.

 

For a long time now on any sort of hospital form or public record, Wally had been put down as believing in a very obscure (and coincidentally, completely bogus) online religion to ward off certain actions that could give away his secret identity. Foremost on the list of certain actions was to disallow the use of heart monitors, even when he was unconscious because 'the heartbeat is a sacred, spiritual thing that must never be shared'. Second was that 'blood may only be handled by blood', so that only family – which was just a fancy way of saying Uncle Barry, because only the two of them had the necessary training – could draw and perform tests on his blood. Couple that with checking out AMA as often as possible, and Wally West had a medical file that wasn't suspiciously empty when the school board made inquiries about why he came to school injured so often, and a secret hidden under the pretense of religious freedom.

 

He and Barry had thought the whole plan up one afternoon over ice cream, after Wally had carried a man with an unfamiliar medical bracelet on his wrist out of a fire. Once the dust had settled, the man had been delighted to explain to the young superhero that the bracelet indicated certain types of medication that he couldn't take for religious reasons.

 

Wally hadn't heard his heart on a non-Justice League heart monitor... since he got his powers.

 

The nurse finally left the room, and Iris rushed over to Wally, who'd begun to raise a hand up to feel the short fuzz of hair on the top of his head. “You had us all worried sick Wally; why did you do it?”

 

“I – what?” he stammered, then wormed a hand out of the hug to touch his hair. With the accelerated rate his hair grew at, for it to still be this short, he'd have had to had it shaved off last night.

 

“The rain kept the house from catching on fire, if you're wondering,” Barry spoke up rather disapprovingly from the far side of the room, arms crossed over his chest.

 

Or it could have burnt off. Say, due to a lightning strike.

 

Last night.

 

He'd gotten his powers last night.

 

It was a little strange to see this Barry – the Barry that hadn't wanted a partner – frowning at him, when the last memory he'd had of him was –

 

_ “ _ _**KID** _ _!” _

 

Timidly, Wally wrapped his arms around Iris, shaking so badly it could almost be described as a seizure, and sobbed.

 

He'd somehow traveled back in time.

 

He could try to find a way forward, back to –

 

–  _ strange, unearthly screaming, and his whole existence was  _ _**burning away** _ _ – _

 

The world slowed down as Wally subconsciously panicked and sped up into near-relative time with a shudder.

 

No.

 

He couldn't make himself do that.

 

Barry was speeding over to him in concern, now. Wally felt a little guilty, but also unspeakably grateful.

 

Because his only other option... was to relive it all. The good times, and the bad times, full of joy and pain.

 

His entire life, from the birth of Kid Flash onward.

 

He needed a hug.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a photo set on Tumblr, which my brain misinterpreted. ( http://teapiratevisions.tumblr.com/post/71512627524/theasterbunny-wwallywest-young-justice-au )


End file.
